Preaching and the Theological Imagination: (9 Studies in Episcopal and Anglican Theology)

In an era in which The Episcopal Church and the Church of England have become increasingly alarmed about numerical decline, Christian proclamation has become more important than ever. To fully meet this challenge, Anglicans must reclaim a vocation to preach the good news with both deep theological grounding and imaginative dynamism. Crucial to this process is a sustained engagement with deepening the theological imagination of the whole Christian community, through renewed practices of, and approaches to, preaching, study, and spiritual development.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Ruthanna Hooke: Real Presence: Sacramental Embodiment in Preaching – Matthew L. Potts: Giving an Account of God: Possibilities for a Sacramental Presence in Preaching – Cameron E. Partridge: Preaching on the Hinges of the Holy: Toward a Homiletic Theology of the Christian Liturgial Year – Zachary Guiliano: Patristic Allegorical Preaching as a Mimetic Technology: An Exploration and Proposal – Regina L. Walton: George Herbert on the «Dangerous» Art of Preaching – John N. Wall: Preaching to the Choir: Understanding Worship in an Aural Culture – Simon Jackson: «Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?»: Preaching and the Metaphysical Lyric – Daniel Heischman: Preaching the Academy: From Cultured Despisers to Encultured Disclaimers – Lizette Larson-Miller: Metaphorically Catechetical: The New Reality of Liturgical Preaching to Multiple Constituences – C. Denise Yarbrough: Practicing the Theology of Companionship: Preaching an Interreliogious Gospel – Joseph Lear: Preaching and Eschatology: Some New Testament Considerations – Brad East: Preaching Peace in Violent Times: Faithful Approaches for Pacifist Pastors to Speak the Truth in Love – Joel C. Daniels: To Speak of Horrors: Preaching Suffering, Human and Divine – Dudley Rose: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theology, Politics and Preaching amidst Suffering – Simon Vibert: Preaching, Authority, and the Exercise of Power – Ryan Cheolgyu Kim: Compassionate Preacher: The Ethos of Effective Preaching in the Age of Multiculturalism – Roger A. Ferlo: Imagining Resurrection – Margaret Guenther: In Hope of the Glory of God.

About the Author :
Zachary Guiliano is a doctoral candidate in medieval history at St. John’s College (Cambridge) and a Gates Cambridge Scholar (2012–2015). His research focuses on patristic and early medieval biblical interpretation, preaching, and religious life, especially on the uses of the Homiliary of Paul the Deacon in the Carolingian era. He is co-editor with Charles Stang of The Open Body: Essays in Anglican Ecclesiology (Peter Lang, 2012) and the author of articles in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, Studia Patristica, and The Living Church. He is also editor of the Covenant weblog. Cameron E. Partridge is Lecturer and Counselor for Episcopal and Anglican Students at Harvard Divinity School and the Episcopal Chaplain at Boston University. He received his ThD from Harvard Divinity School, focusing on conceptions of embodiment, Christology, and asceticism in patristic and contemporary Christian theology. He is the author of essays in The Open Body: Essays in Anglican Ecclesiology (Peter Lang, 2012) and Theology and Sexuality (forthcoming).

Review :
«It is a delight to see a younger generation of Anglican/Episcopalian priests and scholars engaging afresh here with the classic challenge of effective preaching. Drawing deeply on historic resources, but with a keen eye to the particular challenges of contemporary religious pluralism, these essays stimulate both the intellect and the imagination.» (Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge; Honorary Canon of Ely Cathedral) «Preaching, said Bishop Phillips Brooks, is the ‘communication of truth through personality‘, neither without the other. In many and various ways, these insightful essays take both sides of that definition seriously: on the one hand, theology, exegesis, doctrine – the word that is to be communicated; on the other, imagination, embodiment, rhetoric – the concrete particularity of communicating it. The results are remarkable for their diversity, their depth, and their bearing on both understanding and practicing the ministry of proclamation.» (Charles Hefling, Editor emeritus, ‘Anglican Theological Review’) «Like a really good conference, this wide-ranging collection of essays succeeds in generating a great conversation around preaching. With attention to poetry, liturgy, and homiletical performance, classical theology and modern theory, traditional settings and contemporary challenges, this book goes a long way toward delineating the elements of what might emerge as a new Anglican culture of preaching and the spiritual and intellectual disciplines that could sustain it.» (Ellen F. Davis, Amos Ragan Kearns, Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School) «Preaching matters, even in the midst of (or perhaps because of) the technological gadgets that bedazzle us. There is still no substitute for lively and embodied proclamation. These informed and perceptive essays offer important reminders of how that has been true in Anglican tradition as well as encourage us to explore renewed theological, liturgical, psychosocial, and imaginative dimensions in our own day.» (Carl P. Daw, Jr., Adjunct Professor of Hymnology; Curator of the ‘Hymnological Collections’, Boston University School of Theology)